snow
by kawaiiokama
Summary: okay... so implied melloxmatt and implied nearxmatt. but I suppose really only implied.  yaoi, of course. um... hm. oneshot... blah blah blah... derp why do i even d this in my spare time guys? WHYYYYYYY?


BETA COPY… betaed! xD

Gah… so I'm the random at the public library writing shitty yaoi fanfics while downloading movies using the free internet. Oh my god… why do I lack LIFE!

On the bright side, I'm travelling to Europe in two days with one of my mates. Maybe I might get inspired. Or find something better to do with my time and gtfo the internet for once.

pulls epic nerd face

ANYWAY…

Am in a angsty kind of mood today, rather than a smex one. (used up all my smex mood writing yet another fanfic at ungodly hours this morning. smashes head on desk, librarian looks at me funny.) So voila. I present to you an unplanned (I don't have a CLUUUUE where this is going) super drably oneshot. Have high hopes crosses fingers I always thought I could get into character for Near pretty well.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

The frost cobwebs across the window pane like cracks, snow falls outside blanketing the whole world in white. Even the harsh grey of stone is softened by a glittering, purifying sea of ice.

Within, the silence is warm and not uncomfortable. Ticks and clicks of the gameboy buttons, the slosh of chocolate dunked in hot milk and then a snap as it is bitten. And Lego. The rattle of Lego as I search for a specific piece through the pile in front of me.

Mello finishes his chocolate bar and stands, slurping the last of his now sweet milk and stretching. He looks slightly odd in Matt's stripey, too big sweater, but though the fire in the grate crackles merrily it's not quite warm enough for him to be without one.

"OUCH!" - a crunch, the sound of an earthenware mug shattering on hardwood flooring. Mello swore loudly and even Matt looked up from his game, sweat sodden tendrils of hair sticking to the lenses of his goggles. He shouldn't be so close to the fireplace. One crackle of flame, one stray spark, and his whole face would light. But Matt hated the cold.

"Near! You stupid - ouch!" Mello collapsed back down on the sofa, lifting his foot and resting it on his knee. "Oh god… that really hurts!"

From my spot on the floor beneath the window, I couldn't quite see what was happening. The mug Mello had dropped was broken everywhere, his face was twisted in fury and agony. Clearly, something has cut his foot. Blood dripped from the sole, running down his heal and splattering in drops onto the floor. It couldn't have been the mug, it must have been…

"Pick up your dumb toys, you idiot!"

Sighing, I crawled over, swept the stray piece of Lego back to the main pile and shuffled back before sitting down and resuming my play.

"What happened?" - Matt asked, standing and pushing his goggles up. Yes, he had definitely been too close. The skin on his cheeks, the arch of his nose, was singed red and shiny.

"I stood on his block thing! Look, I'm bleeding!"

My only response, the first thing that came to mind, was: "Then you should have looked where you were going, shouldn't you?"

A dark shadow passed over Mello's face, a scowl distorted his features. I just shrugged my shoulders and continued snapping blocks together, the one he had trod on was the exact one I had wanted, so that was fortunate.

"You don't even care, do you?" He stood back up and hobbled over to me with intent, trailing blood behind him in a ragged line. "You stupid-"

"Mello." Matt, moving with peculiar speed and grace, practically leapt across the room, seized Mello and dragged him away from me. I jumped at his speed. And now when I think about it, it was probably better that Mello wasn't able to make his way all the way over here too. Matt's stopping him was nice. "It was an accident."

"I don't care! He should fix it!" Mello struggled against Matt's strong, sinewy arms. A thin, willowy boy, his attempts of freeing himself were futile. "Near! Get your ass over here!" He lifted his injured foot. "Get-get over- Matt, LET ME GO!"

"No, you let IT go. He didn't put it there on purpose!"

I bowed my head, picking up the final piece I needed from the huge pile, and smiled just a little bit at my creation.

"Like fuck he didn't." Mello stuck out his sore foot violently, knocking the large Lego snowman I had been constructing over. It fell, a little blood covered now, and shattered into three pieces on the floor.

I sighed, and turned to face Mello's foot held rigidly in my face.

"Kiss it better, Near." He hissed through the gritted teeth. Fury glinted in his eyes. Matt frowned and went to say something, but Mello cut him off. "Go on! Do it, freak!"

Upon closer inspection, the cut was pretty nasty. Having never been dumb enough to stand on one of my own toys, I don't know of the agony people oft associated with the whole affair. Red trickled down Mello's heal in branching rivulets, on top of that I didn't doubt it would bruise. Right in the tender flesh of the inside arch too.

I suppressed a queasy shift in my gut. I had never been a fan of blood, nor feet, actually, and there was a lot of both in my face right now.

If it would make him shut up and go away…

I lent forward and pecked the ball of his big toe.

"I'd go clean that up if I were you." I picked up the remains of my snowman and began trying to put them back together. "You wouldn't want an infection."

Outside my line of sight, I couldn't see Mello's face at all. Judging by Matt's quick stumbling exclamation of "that's a good idea!", though, I could at least assume that it was one of a dumb shock. I was 80% sure.

I didn't look up when Matt dragged him, still silent with surprise, from the room. Thuds and rustling from the kitchen, the sound of a faucet. I knew Matt would take care of the boy's cut with tender hands and honest concern.

My snowman was repaired, just waiting for one last touch.

I removed my light blue scarf and wrapped it around the plastic man's neck. It was a bit big, but it looked okay.

"Mello is all right." Matt returned to the room a little later. By then, I had moved on to building a small church. "But he's gone to his room."

"Whatever."

I watched him adjusting his goggles, a soft ache settling over my chest, before noting the clumsy but somewhat endearing way in which he sat right next to the fire again, resuming his handheld game. My finger wound a lock of hair around and around, I vetoed my blocks and watched him play instead, just observed a steady frenzied clicking and shaking of the little computerized brick.

He was too engaged to notice.

His sigh was muffled through the wood of the door, so I pressed my back up against it a little more, turning my head so that I could press my ear there too. In the dark, it was freezing. The soft white sweater I wore was no help.

The sound of something heavy and brick-like, a gameboy, being cast onto a desk. Curtains being drawn, the clatter of goggles thrown on the floor and muted rustles as he stripped and went to slide into bed. I knotted my finger in my hair even tighter. Please let him do it tonight…

And then, surprising me a fair amount, a whisper.

"You okay?"

I sat up, opening my eyes and straining to see in the dark. No shapes loomed out at me, no person swept out of the shadows. And then I realised, no one was talking to me. The voice came from the inside.

A grunt, and Matt spoke again. "You should calm down. It was just a Lego."

Another grunt.

"Mello…"

Mello. Something in my chest jerked, a hot arrow of fury, an unfamiliar feeling ripped through my mind for a moment, before being expelled with a quick sigh. So, Mello was in there with him. How long had he been doing so? Just tonight?

I thought distantly of all the times I had crouched outside this door and listened. There had been no other voices then, just Matt's own. Why was Mello there now?

"You know what he's like. Just leave him."

Mello must have spoken then. Whatever he said was so stifled and subdued that I couldn't hear it, but Matt's reply was loud and clear.

"You know that will never be true. You can wish and wish and wish, but it will never be true. Especially if you keep doing those stupid things."

A definite mumble this time, I couldn't make out the words, but unquestionably I heard something. Matt sighed.

"Mello, you're a dumbass." The sound of bedsprings creaking. My fingers froze in my hair. "You'll never get through to him. And you can't keep trying to beat him. He's won."

"He always wins!" - An angry outburst, though Mello, who spoke, sounded different. As though he was talking through wads of tissue. "He always wins… and I doubt he even knows I exist! If you asked him who I was, he'd probably say "Mello who?''

A rustle of sheets, Matt's breath was heavy, as always, as I heard him lie down on the bed.

"Why do you care?"

"Because… why do you care why I care? I don't care!"

"Clearly you do."

A miserable groan and the fump of a pillow being brought down on somebody's head.

"Whose side are you on, Mail?"

"Yours, of course." I'd never heard Matt speak so softly, so sweetly. Except maybe in my dreams. "I'm always on your side."

No reply. Just a silence that screamed at me, just the sound of something, my heart, beating. Something welling and stinging… I didn't like it, it made me shake. I drew my leg closer and whimpered into my knee.

After a while, Mello sighed again. "It's not the same."

"Why? Why is it not the same. He's just a person, Mello."

A loud, humourless laugh.

"No. He's a little beast. A heartless, loveless little beast. He doesn't care about anything or anyone except his toys. He doesn't even care when I try to bully, or try to get him to pay attention to me, or ANYTHING! Why. Won't. He. Look at me?"

The final words rose to a squeal of frustration, punctuated by the thud of the pillow on someone's body. Matt, being bludgeoned by Mello again. Being stomped all over again.

"Mello…"

My heart twitched uncomfortably and I shuffled and squirmed a bit where I sat. He had a lazy, deep voice, unlike Mello's cutting, whiny one.

"Mello, I'm looking at you."

One thing I hated about this spot was the fact I couldn't see what was going on inside. I hated not being able to see. The inside of my eyelids was just as black as when I had my eyes wide open, and the darkness was a canvas for my imagination. Usually, sitting here in the dark and listening, the images my mind painted were beautiful, leaving me breathless and ecstatic, but tonight in the shadows before my eyes I could see Matt's face too clearly, the subtle aching look he always wore much more pronounced when Mello was beside him.

Mello, I'm looking at you…

I exhaled softly, hair on the back of my neck prickling, trying to clear my mind and focus on what was being said. My original intentions regarding my presence here had been forgotten, it wouldn't be likely to happen now. Yet I was still here. What exactly was compelling me to stay, I couldn't say.

"It's not the same!" Mello complained. "You look too hard, too hotly… hungry and unclean and… I don't like that. It's disgusting."

"What do you mean?"

"It's like dirt next to snow, stupid." I could hear a broad, hungry smile enter his voice and the mental image scared me. Sharp white teeth, slightly crazed eyes and doll-like tip of the head. "Why can't you be pure like snow, all cold and calm and untouchable?"

"I'm only human, Mello!"

"There in lies your problem…" Mello spoke crisply. I shivered in disgust at the sound. A hot discomfort was becoming more and more pronounced. "You are. You know he won against you too, Matt. Because of him, you can never have what you want either. Neither of us… can have what we want."

"I know, Mello."

"He always wins."

"I know." The sound of resignation. But then, "Hey, Mello?"

"Mmm?"

"Are you cold?"

A shuffle of blankets being pulled up. "A little..."

"Can I warm you up? Just for a little while?"

"… what?"

"You don't have to think about me, okay, I don't care. I just want to help, I just want… to make you feel better."

"Make me feel…?"

"Please, Mello!" I jumped at the desperation. A stressing wail in his tone now, clutching, feverish, scraped my ears. He sounded as though he was going to break. I could picture his face too, that wild starved and strained look he got whenever he was just about to clock a game but worried there was a possibility he would fall short. He hammered buttons then, cheeks darkening, brow furrowing. He began talking to his game then, and sometimes it worked. Sometimes, he made it.

"I don't have to think about you?" Mello seemed suspicious.

"No."

"Can I think-"

"Yes. Please, Mello…"

What _WAS _that sensation? I squirmed uncomfortably again, frozen in place and unable to move. It felt wrong… like trying to breath cold water. It gets caught in your chest, it knots in your lungs, it makes you feel as though your heart is about to explode.

"Okay."

A breath, words so soft I barely caught them, so meaningful my waterlogged chest seized.

In the darkness, I gripped my leg tighter, leaning forward off the door. Please, I pleaded with myself. Please let me stop shaking. Please let my mind clear.

"Thank you so much, Mello…"

Mello. Oh god, how I HATE Mello. He had won! He always won!

Standing, using the door frame to support myself, I dashed down black corridors back to my own room. A kiss echoed, how did such a soft sound echo, in my mind. It hammered my brain and filled me, until I could see it. I could visualise those quick gamers hands knotting in blonde hair, always pressed the right buttons. I could see dark blue eyes closed in relief, and skin. Warm, human skin.

I fucking HATE Mello.

When I passed a window in the corridor by my room though, I stopped.

_Its like dirt next to snow…_

The moon was out, breathing over my skin. It melted away the shakes, letting me stand still without writhing. The feeling in my chest, ripping and burning, cooled, subsided. Turned stony and heavy. I exhaled and my breath fogged the glass.

I always did favour the moon. Always did like winter, prefer it to summer or spring. In the summer, Matt and Mello lounged often, and irate and bored Mello always targeted me more. The evenings too were tense and hot and I found myself outside Matt's room a lot, too much, desperate and crazed with heat to hear the sounds of him.

Heat, burning heat.

The cold of winter was comforting. What was I even thinking, wearing a sweater? I striped it off and stood by the window wearing just a singlet instead.

Someday, I thought I might turn to ice.

Maybe, if I stood here long enough, I would freeze.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

FINISHED! Everything went better than expected I suppose. Hm… once again, off on the characterization. Sigh…

And oh my god… thank you so much to my beta/yaoi buddy, who I will refer to as gothallex, for well, betaing and being my yaoi buddy. You did an amazing job, saved me a lot of procrastinating and inspired me to write more smex in the future. *glomp*


End file.
